Bloody Mary
'For the unofficial scarezone, see Dark Reflections And at the center of the horror will be someone new. Someone you’ve never met before but long-feared. Someone who inflicts fear beyond comprehension. "COME INTO THE MIRROR, MY DEAR…THIS WON’T HURT A BIT" '''Bloody Mary (aka Dr. Mary Agana) was the original event icon created for Halloween Horror Nights Orlando's 18th event, Halloween Horror Nights: Reflections of Fear. Based on the legend of Bloody Mary, Universal created an elaborate backstory for her transformation from psychiatrist to Bloody Mary. Mary made appearances in the advertising and other aspects of the event. Bloody Mary was an unusual version of a licensed character in that while she is based on existing sources, her backstory, design, and personality was original. Thus, Agana could be counted as the first (and so far only) icon that is both licensed and a Universal original at the same time. Background Dr. Mary Agana was introduced on the HalloweenHorrorNights.com website on July 1, 2008. Website visitors entered her office and read her journal as it appeared in 1958. Her office was shown with a large mirror reflecting her desk, initially shown as clean and orderly. In her journal appeared a letter establishing her as a psychiatrist whose methods were rejected by the National Association of Mental Health (NAMH), and whose grandmother had died and left her many of her possessions in her will. Weekly, new pages were added to the journal as she took new cases and used her methods despite the rejection letter. With each case it became clearer that her sanity was waning as she tortured her patients with fear. Treating the patients with an immersion therapy for their fears, she sent her first two patients to asylums, however her third patient was inadvertently killed during therapy. Her next journal entry showed the excitement she felt over the patient's death, and was accompanied by a change in her office becoming more disheveled. With her next case, her writing became sloppier and she scribbled many pictures on the pages. This patient and the next were both killed, although not directly by Mary herself. She began to question her own sanity in her journal, but continued to see patients. Her next two cases included one of the NAMH doctors who had rejected her and another man (Boris Shuster). She killed the doctor with her own hands and had become insane. In one of her last journal entries, Mary continually wrote August 27 on the page. Throughout that day, her office changed again, aging fifty-years to bring the website to the present. Her final journal entry was revealed as the mirror broke open and she became Bloody Mary. A paranormal investigation team founded by Shuster, Legendary Truth investigated the incident in the office on August 27, 2008, the fifty-year anniversary of Agana's transformation into Bloody Mary. They revealed her as the inspiration for the urban legend. Backstory The Old Urban Legend The Urban Legend of Bloody Mary goes back as far as anyone can remember. Everyone knows it, yet no one knows it's true source. According to the legend, the ghost named Bloody Mary is said to appear in a mirror when her name is stated three times, though there are many variations as to what happens afterward. It is believed that legend stretches as far back as Queen Mary I of England. However, the most recent and historically accurate version concerns a doctor named Mary Agana & Bloody Mary's Music Box. There is/was this charm to see her through your bedroom mirror however, a lot of people think it as less likely. The Events of 1908 Mary Worthington, a school teacher in the small town of Carey, Ohio, was killed on August 27, 1908 as a result of a Halloween prank orchestrated by the school handyman, Aldridge Kesterson. Six students (Louise Hatfield, George Von Stebler, Shawn McPherson, Jim Deedle, Alice Dodgson, and Jeremiah Kubsch) were also involved in the mysterious death of their teacher; one student, Thornton Kesterson, was not present due to the persistent goading by his father, Aldridge. The schoolmaster, Mr. Renshaw, found his schoolhouse in complete disarray with blood and shards of glass scattered across the room. Although suspected murdered, Mrs. Worthington's body was never found, and was classified missing. The Events of 1958 Marie W. Agana, daughter of Mary Worthington, dies on June 20, 1958. Dr. Mary Agana, daughter of Marie W. Agana, receives a letter from Alexander Pohl, her family attorney, that informs her of the wishes of her late mother. Mary will receive several valuable silver heirlooms that originally belonged to her grandmother, Mary Worthington. Most notably, Mary receives a silver jewelry box/music box, one that contains a presense that seems to possess Dr. Agana over time. On June 25, 1958, Mary receives a letter from the National Association of Mental Health that informs her that the board members of the NAMH have denied funding for her immersive fear therapy program. Dr. Gustav Heim, the director of the NAMH, states within the letter that he is disturbed that Dr. Agana may proceed with her plan regardless. Dr. Agana opens up her own facility, "Living Fearlessly: Specialized Treatments for Fear Based Ailments", in 1958 to begin her immersive therapy program. She hires assistants from a local facility, that are believed to be ex-cons or mental patients. Over the course of a few months, Mary sees several patients to discover new ways to “cure” them of their fears and phobias. However, due to the disappearance of Charlie McPherson, a freelance photographer hired by private investigator Boris Shuster, Shuster begins an investigation into Dr. Agana and her clinic. As patients begin to disappear from the clinic, Boris begins to wonder what really goes on inside of Dr. Agana’s practice. Mary begins to suspect she is being watched, perhaps by Boris, as well as by her grandmother Mary Worthington through the mirror. Shuster makes an appointment with Dr. Mary Agana on August 27, 1958 to discover the truth behind the mysterious psychiatrist. On this night, Dr. Agana is brutally murdered, supposedly by Boris Shuster, but her body was never found (it was later discovered that the murderer was a man named David Gronoll, a boxer/ ex- con who was either one of her patients or one of the orderlies who worked for her). Some believe that the spirit of “Bloody Mary,” none other than Mary’s grandmother Mary Worthington, had been gradually possessing Dr. Mary Agana since she inherited her heirlooms in June of 1958. In 2008, Legendary Truth: The Collective, a paranormal investigation organization started by Boris Shuster and researchers from Princeton after the events of 1958, begins an investigation on the disappearance of Mary Agana. Collective field operatives collect information and visit Dr. Agana’s office, which is still in utter disarray since her brutal death. At 11:03 pm on August 27, 2008, a manifestation of “Bloody Mary” is detected by the field agents. Calvin Thorncastle, CEO of Legendary Truth: The Collective, quickly dispatches new operatives into Mary Agana’s world to collect additional information on the doctor and her relationship to “Bloody Mary” and the seven patients that fell victim to her treatments. The case was also crowdsourced online to scour the internet for as many clues and fragmentary information as possible. Design This image was used in some of the merchandise. In the Dean Karr- directed commercial, she wore a white dress similar to Sadako/Samara from the Ring movie series, had long fingernails, and wore a full head of ebony black hair. She had multiple scars on her face, completely blank corpse eyes, and used blood for lipstick, giving her a slightly Joker-esque sight. The other promotional tools had Mary in more or less the same look, but with purple lips, and a more elaborate dress, with a thorn design and black roses below her chest. Aside from the archway video, her hair was straight. Her “Agana” form wore a dress similar to Dr. Caine. (Although the color scheme was changed from black to Silver in The Icon House) Personality Mary Agana bares many similarities to Dr Albert Caine AKA The Caretaker. Like Albert, She was formerly just doing research on the emotions and minds of human beings, specifically on the subject of phobias. However, she found out she was having fun with her “research”, and eventually was interested in how much fear the body can take before it succumbs. Excited by her experiments, she soon gained a Jigsaw-like state of mind with the experiments she conducted. She seems to have signs of dissociation identity disorder in regards to her diaries. However this idea was dropped. She initially was very professional with a clinical, no-nonsense attitude, and cared very little for making herself look pretty, as she found it a distraction from her work. As she began to lose her mind, she began to start using makeup and started dressing more femininely. The Opening Scaremonies was an exception though, where she displayed a peculiarly bubbly and trollish attitude. Appearances As the event icon, Bloody Mary made a number of appearances before and during the event. She was the main advertising tool in commercials, and appeared in some off the mazes in the event. Her main motif was Weeping For A Child's Loss by Faithful Fathers. Prior to the event After the revelation of Bloody Mary as the event icon, the website was updated with her appearing to crash out of a mirror after it said her name three times. A number of billboards appeared in the Orlando area featuring her face and glowing eyes with the word "Bloody" written looking like blood. Additionally, a commercial featuring her mirror world was shown on television. In the commercial, Mary is sitting at her mirror with a man on the other side. He continually says her name, and on the third she breaks out of the mirror lunging at him screaming. An alternative version of the hotel commercial has her suddenly appear behind a woman and strangle her. At the event In Mary's story, it is painful every time she breaks out of the mirror, which is why she screams. For this reason, there was not a main, opening show featuring her. The only show she in which she appeared was the media-only Opening Scare-a-monies. In the show, an investigator brought a mirror and placed it on the stage in front of the audience. With the audience chanting her name, and a flicker of the lights, Mary crashed out of the mirror and was interviewed by the media. The general public also experienced Mary during the event. A large LED screen was placed in the entrance to the park. Looking like a mirror, Mary would talk from it taunting guests to enter her world. Periodically she would break out of the screen like a mirror, screaming as she did so. Additionally, Mary appeared in a number of the mazes. A ghostly apparition of her appeared in The Hallow and Scary Tales: Once Upon a Nightmare, and her picture appeared in the static of a television in Creatures! and a monitor in Interstellar Terror. A pic of her would be found on McPherson's desk in the first scene of Dead Exposure. Finally, Dr. Agana's office was visited in the Reflections of Fear maze, where both of Mary's personalities made appearances. In 2009's event Ripped from the Silver Screen, Mary's decapitated head was put in the house Leave it to Cleaver. Halloween Horror Nights: Twenty Years of Fear Bloody Mary, was featured as part of the VIP Lounge area at the the event as a mannequin wearing her doctor's coat. There was also a scareactor in PsychoScareapy: Echoes of Shadybrook that was meant to be Dr. Agana. In 2012, it was revealed that she was a member of The Legions of Horror. Ironically, she's in the Baccanoid legion like Shuster. In the 2015 Legendary Truth investigation (which was held during the event's last three nights), it was strongly implied that she played a major role in freeing the icons from Fear's lantern. Also, during the event, the chalkboard that has her poem from The Skoolhouse scarezone has her name erased, a reference to the legal issues regarding Bloody Mary's use in entertainment. Gallery Bloody Mary1.jpg Bloody Mary Stature Photo 2.jpg Bloody Mary 3.jpg Bloody Mary Projection Waterfront.jpg Bloody Mary upper torso.png Blood Mary Projection 1.jpg Blood Mary Projection 2.jpg Blood Mary Projection 3.jpg Blood Mary Projection 4.jpg Bloody Mary Makeup.jpg|Photo from Michael Burnett's Instagram. Bloody Mary collage 1.jpg|Credit to Mike Black Bloody Mary collage 2.jpg|Credit to Mike Black Bloody Mary Profile Picture.png Bloody Mary Statue.jpg|Picture from the owner of HorrorNightsCollector. Bloody Mary Box.jpg|Picture from the owner of HorrorNightsCollector. HHN 2008 Mary Screenshot.png Bloody Mary Black and White Drawing.jpg Bloody Mary 7.jpg| Image by Iric Fidram. Bloody Mary Mirror 4.jpg| Image by Iric Fidram. Bloody Mary Mirror 3.jpg| Image by Iric Fidram. Bloody Mary Mirror 2.jpg| Image by Iric Fidram. Bloody Mary 6.jpg| Image by Iric Fidram. Bloody Mary 5.jpg| Image by Iric Fidram. Bloody Mary 4.jpg| Image by Iric Fidram. Bloody Mary Screaming.jpg| Image by Iric Fidram. Bloody Mary Normal 3.jpg| Image by Iric Fidram. Bloody Mary Normal 2.jpg| Image by Iric Fidram. Bloody Mary Normal.jpg| Image by Iric Fidram. Bloody Mary Crack 4.jpg| Image by Iric Fidram. Bloody Mary Crack 3.jpg| Image by Iric Fidram. Bloody Mary Crack 2.jpg| Image by Iric Fidram. Bloody Mary Crack.jpg| Image by Iric Fidram. HHN 2008 BLoody Mary.jpg| Image by Iric Fidram. Bloody Mary Strikes Tonight.jpg| Image by Iric Fidram. Bloody Mary 13.jpg| Image by Iric Fidram. Bloody Mary 12.jpg| Image by Iric Fidram. Bloody Mary 11.jpg| Image by Iric Fidram. Bloody Mary 10.jpg| Image by Iric Fidram. Bloody Mary 9.jpg| Image by Iric Fidram. Bloody Mary 8.jpg| Image by Iric Fidram. Bloody Mary Clock.jpg| Image by Iric Fidram. Bloody Mary Desk.jpg| Image by Iric Fidram. Bloody Mary Strikes Tonight.jpg| Image by Iric Fidram. http://archive.li/Seqrg Universal crafts Bloody Mary bio for Halloween Horror Nights Halloween Horror Nights, Universal Orlando, Universal Studios — posted by dewayne bevil on September, 25 2008 3:26 PM Discuss This: Comments(5) | Add to del.icio.us | Digg it When the creative team at Universal Orlando started researching Bloody Mary as a possible icon for Halloween Horror Nights (which kicks off Friday, Sept. 26), they found there was a great awareness of her urban legend through several generations, from folks in their early teens up through their 50s. However, her story was pretty basic: Say her name three times and she appears in the mirror. Scary! So for HHN purposes, they created a backstory. Here it is, in the words of Michael Roddy, manager of show development: She was a doctor named Mary Agana in the ”50s — 1958 is when all of this went down.She wanted to cure people of their fears and phobias, so she opened this clinic and tried to get funding for it. What she would do is, let’s say you had a fear of … what are you scared of? scared of things jumping out at me, I tell Roddy. So if you happened to go to her for help or if she knew of your condition, she would invite you to her clinic and strap you to a table and constantly have things jump out at you continually until you got over your fear. There was a safe word, which was to call her name three times and she would stop the experiment. If it really became too much you could say her name three times and she would stop. She would watch all of these experiences from behind a two-way mirror so that you felt totally alone until you called her name. Then she would appear in the mirror and stop the experiment. Well, Mary found out very shortly that she had a fear as well, and that was the fear of death. So she went to cure her own fear. Once she cured the fear of the people that came, sometimes in their last session she wouldn’t stop the experiment and scare them to death. And in their death, she became closer to it. In one of her experiments — the last one, actually — the person broke free from the table while screaming her name, broke through the mirror and pulled her through, which killed her. She died looking at her own face in the mirror. That transformed her into the Bloody Mary legend we know today. So that when you call her name, she will break through the mirror. And if you look at her face, all the different cuts and things are from all the times over the years that people have dared to summon her. It’s a very painful experience for her because she gets cuts when she comes through, she takes physical form. Bonus tidbit: the years 2008 and 1958, when Mary’s story is set, use the same calendar. Sept. 26, 2008, is on a Friday … So was Sept. 26, 1958. Discuss. Trivia * Interestingly enough, a bottle of Sleepwell can be found in her house. With this and the Sleepwell cameo in The Spawning/ the 2010 Psychoscareapy, one has to wonder if Agana, Shadybrook, The Carey Sewers, and the Sculders had connections with another nightmarish entity (pun not intended.) See also *Living Fearlessly *Boris Shuster *Reflections of Fear *Bloody Mary's Journal External links *Halloween Horror Nights 18 Commercial featuring Bloody Mary *Opening Scare-a-monies with Bloody Mary Category:HHNOrlando Icons Category:Licensed characters Category:Halloween Horror Nights Orlando Category:Icons Category:Halloween Horror Nights: Reflections of Fear